The Grey Planet

• Glen Stack, Grade 8
• Poetry
• 2009

“It’s grey, all grey” thought Rodney, the first citizen on Mars. He was standing in the air lock stairing out at Earth with the rest of the ships passengers. They were shoving and pushing around him trying to get their first good look at Earth from Mars.
N.A.S.A opened citizen space travel when the pollution on Earth got too great. N.A.S.A had built bases on Mars ten years ago in preparation.
Rodney let himself be jostled by the crowd through the interlocking domes to the residential dome. As he went, he remembered what people had said Earth had looked like from the Moon. ‘It’s the most beautiful thing; all white, bleu and green,’ but that had been two hundred years ago. Now with all the pollution from the hover cars and mass development removing almost all the trees. The only resort was to go to another planet, Mars.
Rodney went into his home which he shared with nine other people. He was still thinking about what the humans did to Earth, what will stop them from doing this to Mars. “We need a new approach, a greener approach. The Mars approach.”